Brokered Submission

by Claire Thompson

  Taking her face in his hands, he touched his lips to hers. His kiss was light at first, but became more insistent, his tongue teasing along her lower lip and sliding into her mouth. He brought his arms around her. She could feel his cock like an iron bar between them as he pulled her close against his body. Her arms came up of their own accord and snaked around his neck as she kissed him back.

  This was more like it! He was going to make love to her at last. She leaned heavily against him, silently willing him to move toward the narrow twin bed so they could fall upon it together.

  As if reading her mind and obeying her unspoken command, Dylan cupped his palms beneath her ass and lifted her into the air. She locked her legs around his waist and buried her face in his neck. But instead of carrying her across the room, after a moment he lifted her away from his body and set her on her feet.

  “Enough sweetness,” he said, his voice gruff, his eyes glittering. He hooked his finger through the O-ring of her collar and pulled on it, forcing her up on her toes. “I told you this was boot camp, and time’s a wastin’.”

  He let go of the collar and stepped back. Going over to the wall, he retrieved two coils of rope and a pair of leather wrists cuffs. There was a small stepstool leaning against one side of the bureau. He brought this, along with the rope and cuffs, back to where Zoë was standing.

  Without saying a word, he opened the stepstool and placed the cuffs and one of the rope coils on it. He unspooled the second coil, tying a slipknot at each end. He did the same with the second piece of rope. Zoë watched him, saying nothing, her mind temporarily short-circuited by thwarted sexual frustration and an undeniable fascination with what he was doing.

  He reached for the cuffs and attached one to each rope, using a spring clip to secure them. He ascended the stepstool and looped the ropes over the eyehooks, pulling the knots tight. Stepping down from the stool, he moved it aside.

  The ropes swayed on either side of Zoë, the leather cuffs dangling at their ends. “Lift your arms over your head,” Dylan instructed in a quiet but firm voice.

  Zoë stared up at the ropes, and then glanced anxiously toward the whip rack, her heart beating high and fast in her throat. “I’m not sure I—” she began.

  Dylan cut her off. “It’s okay, Zoë. You don’t have to be sure. I’m sure, and I promise you this, I won’t give you more than you can handle.”

  He reached then for her cheek, stroking it with two fingers, the gesture at once tender and extremely erotic. Zoë couldn’t control the small tremor of lust, or was it fear, that moved through her frame.

  “Now,” he said softly. “Do as you’re told.”

  Chapter 5

  Dylan’s balls ached. When he’d had her in his arms, her strong legs wrapped around his waist, why hadn’t he just carried her to the bed, thrown her down and fucked her? It was beyond clear she wanted it as much as he did, so what was stopping him? After all, it wasn’t as if he were her trainer. But he knew the reason, even as his cock demanded an answer.

  Zoë Stamos was sexually submissive at her core, and every minute they had spent together since the night before only confirmed it more solidly in his mind. Beyond that, he sensed her sexual masochism, and the sensual sadist in him responded with a fiery rush of passion the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in many years.

  She was worth more than just a quick roll in the hay. She deserved all the energy and skill he could bring to their brief time together as Master and slave. His greedy cock would just have to wait to plunge itself into her tight, wet heat, not only until she earned it, but until he did as well.

  Zoë lifted her arms, her eyes fixed anxiously on his face. He closed the soft leather cuffs around each wrist, which raised her arms high, but not high enough to suit him. Dylan mounted the stool and adjusted the ropes until she was forced up, not on her toes, which would be too tiring, but rather on the balls of her feet, her heels barely touching the carpet, her body stretched taut by the ropes.

  He stepped back to admire the pretty picture, stroking his cock briefly to calm its insistent call for attention. Her small pink tongue made an appearance on her lower lip, the gesture so sensual he nearly lunged for her then and there. She gripped the rope tightly in each hand above her cuffs. He could see the slight tracery of her ribs beneath her high, round breasts, and her bare pussy pouted at him as if begging for a kiss. She was watching him with those liquid dark eyes.

  His cooler head prevailing, he selected a large, heavy flogger from the whip rack for her introduction to the erotic, intense stimulation that awaited her. He also chose a large plastic hair clip from the supply bureau.

  Returning to the bound woman, he tucked the flogger in the back of his shorts and then twisted Zoë’s thick, shiny hair up onto her head, securing it with the clip. He stepped back so she could see him, and took the flogger once more into his hands, allowing the luxurious suede tresses to glide between his fingers.

  He held the flogger close to her face so she could smell the intoxicating scent of leather. “Kiss the whip,” he commanded, “as a gesture of your willingness to suffer its lash.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, a shudder moving through her. Beneath her fear, he could sense the burning need. He touched the whip to her lips, and her eyes closed as she softly kissed the handle.

  Pleased, Dylan moved behind her. “We’ll start slowly. I want to get a sense of what you can handle. The key here is to relax. Don’t tense, don’t anticipate. Don’t let fear control your experience. Embrace the sensations, and let them take you where they will.”

  He brushed the flogger against her ass. “I’m scared,” she blurted, forgetting the “Sir.”

  He didn’t correct her. “It’s okay to be scared. Use that fear. Channel it into strength.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  He swished the tresses over her back and shoulders, and graced the backs of her thighs with their leather kiss. For the next several minutes, he warmed her skin, acquainting her with the feel of the flogger against her flesh. When he gauged she was ready, he delivered the first real stroke, catching both ass cheeks simultaneously. He loved the way the dark leather contrasted to the pale skin and the slight jiggle of supple flesh beneath its stroke.

  Zoë gasped, her shoulders tensing forward.

  “Relax,” Dylan reminded her. “Accept what is given to you.”

  He struck her ass again, a little harder than before. Again she gasped and jerked. He continued to flog her luscious bottom until she stopped gasping with each stroke, her hands finally relaxing their chokehold on the ropes.

  Encouraged, he let a blow land between her shoulder blades, though he modified the stroke to allow for less padding beneath the skin, and thus greater sensitivity. Again came the small, startled gasp, and her fingers tightened once more around the ropes. Dylan kept his focus on her shoulders and upper back until the skin turned pink, and her fear subsided into something more manageable.

  Stepping to the side, he drew back his arm and let the flogger fall hard against her ass, the blow pushing her slightly forward. She yelped, her breathy cry going straight to his cock. He delivered another stroke, just as hard, and then another. She began to dance on her toes in a vain effort to twist away from the lash, but Dylan easily followed her moves.

  “Zoë, you’re fighting the flogger. You’re resisting.”

  “It hurts!” she cried, as he delivered a hot stroke to the backs of her thighs.

  “It’s meant to,” he reminded her between lashes. “The pain is the entryway to where you need to go, to where you’ve always longed to go. Give in to it, Zoë. Let it wrap you in its arms.”

  He hit her harder. She twisted at the last second, which caused the tips of the flogger to wrap cruelly around her hip. Dylan, who believed in experiencing everything he gave to his subs, well knew how painful those leather tips could be when slamming against bone with sonic speed. “Stay in position,” he admonished. “Show me your gr
ace.”

  He flogged her ass with rhythmic, steady blows. She was panting, small mewling whimpers pushed out between breaths. She was taking a pretty intense flogging, especially for her first time out, but Dylan sensed it wasn’t yet time to stop.

  As happened when he was doing it right, he could almost feel the strokes as if he were on the receiving end of the flogger. Her emotions—the fear, the desire, the passion, the need—were all moving over and through him as if they belonged to him. As a dominant friend had once said when trying to explain the sensation—it was like flying a kite in rough winds. She was the kite, and it was up to him to skillfully manage the spool and line, to not only keep her aloft, but to help her soar.

  Her yelps and whimpers had subsided into deep, guttural moans, and her head had fallen forward on her chest. She was close, but not there yet. A little more, a little harder—you can do it, he rooted silently, not wanting to distract her with words.

  He whipped her steadily, the flogger flying over her skin from thigh to shoulder and back again. He focused again on her ass, which was now a deep cherry red. She was a natural, already so close to that powerful, sacred place that some subs took years to find.

  Suddenly she grunted and jerked, as if coming out of a dream, and he felt the serenity subside like a wave falling back from the shore. “No,” she moaned. “No. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” She began to twist and dance again, fighting the flogger once more.

  “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” she whined, her voice edging toward panic.

  “Fuck,” Dylan muttered in frustration, angry not at her, but at himself. He had pushed too hard, too fast. He had wanted this too much. He ached to continue, to force her through sheer will to let go, but he knew from long experience that the moment was gone. He needed to back off and let her recover.

  Slowly, he eased the flogger’s stroke until the leather was once again only brushing her skin. Zoë was sagging against her cuffs. He moved to face her. Her eyes were closed. She opened them when he touched the handle of the whip once more to her lips. “Kiss the whip to show your thanks,” he ordered.

  She obeyed.

  Reaching up, he quickly released the clips that held her cuffs, catching her arms as they fell forward. She leaned heavily against him as he guided her toward her bed. Fantasies of making love to her while she was still cradled in the arms of a submissive flying experience receded with each step. He hadn’t yet earned the privilege. He would just have to try harder.

  ~*~

  Zoë lay on her stomach on the bed. Dylan sat beside her. His hands felt good as he massaged her hot, stinging skin with a soothing lotion. She’d been terrified at the thought of the flogging, even more scared than she’d been of the spanking. Ironically, the spanking hurt more. Or no, that wasn’t precisely accurate. The spanking packed more of a wallop than the flogger—Dylan’s hard palm crashing down again and again against her ass. The flogger had been more sensual, if that was the right word, the leather like a lover’s kiss, at least at first.

  Those initial gentle strokes had lulled her into a false sense of security, the slow buildup easing her into accepting more and more, until suddenly she slipped over the edge of pleasure into a stinging, biting pain that radiated from shoulder to thigh. She’d wanted to take it, to embrace it, as Dylan had urged, even though she wasn’t really sure what he meant. She wanted to prove to him, and to herself, that she could do this—she could handle whatever he meted out.

  She had a sense she’d been close to something more—something somehow profound, but whatever it was, it had slipped away. For the second time since she’d agreed to their bizarre arrangement, she’d nearly shouted out her safeword. He’d stopped literally within seconds of her opening her mouth. She sensed his disappointment, and this upset her more than she cared to admit.

  I’ll do better, she silently promised herself, and him, even as she wondered why it mattered.

  “You did great, Zoë,” Dylan said, making her wonder for a second if she’d actually spoken aloud. “You really are a natural, perhaps even more so than I suspected. In fact, if I hadn’t been so eager and pushed you too fast, I do believe you might even have flown. You’re really something, you know that?”

  Warmth moved through her body at his praise, the feeling she’d somehow failed replaced with a sense of accomplishment and hope. “Thank you,” she said, her mouth lifting into a smile. “I’ve read about that concept—flying. It’s a kind of endorphin release, right? Like a runner’s high.”

  “You’ve read about it, huh?” Dylan countered. “So you know a bit more about BDSM than you’ve led me to believe?”

  Zoë’s face heated. She was glad he couldn’t see her blush. “Well, yeah, I guess so,” she admitted. “I mean, it’s just fiction. I like to read erotic romances and sometimes they lean a little toward bondage and stuff like that.”

  She was relieved when Dylan didn’t press the issue. “Flying,” he elaborated, “is kind of a like a runner’s high, physiologically speaking, but there’s so much more to it. How do I explain it?” He paused, no doubt gathering his thoughts, and then continued. “I’ve heard it described by subs as a descent into fire and then a rising into the heavens. I know that sounds rather vague, but it does seem to be the process—moving through something really difficult and intense into something sublime. Maybe it’s like a rocket when it’s burning its way through the atmosphere and then the sudden break into outer space—into this vast, profound place of utter peace. As a Dom, when I’m truly connected to what’s going on, I feel transported along with the sub into a kind of altered state, and the experience is truly breathtaking.”

  “It sounds amazing,” Zoë said, a surge of longing moving through her.

  “It is,” Dylan replied softly. “And you shall have it.” He released the hairclip and tugged at the elastic, pulling her hair gently free of its ponytail. He shifted his focus to her shoulders, massaging away the last vestiges of tension she didn’t know she was still carrying. “I promise.”

  She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, Dylan was still there, but a tray with a glass and a plate of cookies had magically appeared beside her. Dylan smiled at her. “You dozed off. I decided to get you some refreshment.”

  He lifted the glass from the tray. “I know you take your hot coffee black, and I also know you like your caffeine,” he grinned, “but I want you properly hydrated for the rest of the day’s events, so I decided to make you a nice big glass of iced coffee instead. I added a little sugar and a touch of cream. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you some water.” He handed her the glass.

  Zoë lifted herself to a sitting position as she eyed the cold drink skeptically. She was thirsty, and she reached for the glass. “Thank you.” She never took sugar in her coffee, not because she didn’t like it, but because of a lifetime of watching her weight and denying herself anything that might add unnecessary calories to her diet. And milk just plain made her gag. She avoided it at all costs. But Dylan was watching her expectantly, clearly pleased with himself, and she had to admit she quite enjoyed the novel experience of having someone wait on her.

  Closing her eyes, prepared to find the coffee nauseatingly sweet and disgustingly milky, she sipped. She sipped again, and then took a big gulp. The coffee was strong, lightly sweetened, and stunningly delicious, the cream taking off that slight bitter edge that coffee always left on the back of her tongue. “That’s good...Sir,” she enthused, suddenly aware she’d forgotten to use the appellation during the flogging.

  “Glad you like it. Have a cookie.” Dylan reached for the plate and handed her a fat golden-brown cookie dusted with powdered sugar. Though she’d eaten a much larger breakfast than she was accustomed to only a while before, her mouth watered in eager anticipation.

  Carbs, sugar, fat—cookies never featured in Zoë’s regime, but neither did spending the weekend in a BDSM dungeon, so what the hell, why not? It smelled wonderful—the aromas of ginger, butter and molasse
s taking her back to childhood. Zoë bit into the soft, chewy cookie. “Mmm,” she moaned, her mouth still full of cookie. “This is so good.” It had to be homemade. “Did you bake this?” She couldn’t stop eating it.

  “Me?” Dylan shook his head with a laugh. “I wish I could take the credit, but no, my housekeeper, Adrianna, made them. She’s always trying to fatten me up. When she leaves for the weekend, she’s prepared enough meals, cookies and cakes to feed an army. I usually end up taking most of the treats to work just to get them out of the house.”

  Zoë finished the cookie and greedily gobbled the second one as well, surreptitiously eying the plate to see if somehow she’d missed a third one. She resisted the urge to press the few remaining crumbs on the plate with her finger, and instead finished the delicious iced coffee.

  Dylan stood and took the empty glass from her. He placed it on the tray beside the plate, and set the tray on the floor against the wall. Looking down at Zoë, he said, “Okay, break is over. Time for the next exercise. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  As soon as he said it, she realized she had to pee, and she nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Do you need to move your bowels?”

  Zoë was embarrassed by such a direct and personal question. “Um, no...Sir. I just, uh, need to pee.” She started to rise to head for the bathroom, but Dylan put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

  “Stay where you are. Lie back down on the bed, face down. I have to get a few things.”

  Confused, Zoë did as she was told, curious as to what Dylan had up his sleeve. She watched him stride across the room toward the wall with the whips, rope and chain. He stopped in front of the tall bureau and pulled open a lower drawer.

  He returned to the bed carrying a small serving tray on which he’d placed several items. He sat beside her, placing the tray at the foot of the mattress. He picked up one of a series of what appeared to be oddly shaped dildos. It tapered to a rounded point not much bigger than a finger, widening along its length to a flared base. It was wrapped in clear plastic. He held it closer for her inspection. “Do you know what this is?”